Nora and Gramma's Special Day

Being the oldest child in a family of five siblings, I always thought my position was the most difficult. I thought I was the only sibling who had to do any work. Then when I got older, I felt like I was given too much responsibility and it was never appreciate. Poor me.

But as I've aged I've come to realize my position as the oldest had some benefits, and I've become increasingly interested in the importance of child's position in the family as it's related to that child's personality.

In my middle daughter's family, I see an older sister who is outgoing, vivacious, and always smiling.
And I see the baby sister who is cute and funny and coddled by everyone in the family. And then there is Nora, the middle sister. Oh, my....how I've grown to love that child. She is shy, a little introverted, and sometimes seems to get lost in the middle of everything.

Last week was her birthday and I told her I wanted to spend some special time with her."Just you and me?" she asked. When I assured her it would be just the two of us, you should have seen her smile. Because she's a little shy, she sometimes has a difficult time expressing her feelings...but not when I told her we were going to have a special day just for her.

Yesterday was that day. When I picked her up, she was ready, and it looked like she was going to burst with happiness.  We had already decided what we were going to do. We were going to Build-a-Bear first. She could have any bear she wanted and dress it any way she wanted to. It would be her birthday gift from Gramma. We had so much fun. She named her bear "Sparkle" and we got a real birth certificate for it. She got to dress it in princess clothes. Her smile was priceless, as you can tell from the picture.

After that we walked around the big mall, and since none of us get to "the city" very often, riding the escalators and elevators was a special treat. We ended our trip to the mall with a double fudge chocolate chip cookie from the cookie store. Nora and I share a love for chocolate.

Then it was Gramma's turn to pick a place to go. Do you happen to have that one place on earth that you love so much that it always feels like you are "Home" when you're there? That's where I wanted to go, and I wanted to share it with my special girl of the day. So, off to the botanical gardens we went, and I'm happy to say she was as enchanted with it as I am. We were a little early to see all the spring flowers, but the daffodils (my favorites because they are yellow) were in full bloom.

Nora also wanted her picture taken in front of the bird lady statue.

 

And before we left we had to have our picture taken by the "gramma and girl" statue.

Then we asked a nice lady to take our picture in front of the prettiest tree in the garden

We ended our day by meeting her two sisters and mom at the park down by the river. When I look at the picture, Nora is shining as brightly as her older sister and the baby sister. I think a day of being "special" will do that to a girl. And it makes a Gramma feel very happy too!